Survival
Every character in the play is striving to endure, each in their own unique manner. Grandma Kurnitz is the pivotal figure who influences everyone else, compelling them to develop their own survival strategies. After losing two of her children, Grandma Kurnitz emotionally distanced herself from her remaining family members as her method of dealing with grief and continuing on. This emotional detachment, combined with her severe demeanor, is meant to instill resilience in her children, teaching them how to navigate life's challenges. Her offspring have each adapted differently to her stern upbringing. For Eddie, survival means engaging in grueling hard work. He believes he is doing the right thing by going into debt to facilitate his wife's hospital care. Now, he feels the only way to repay this debt is to work tirelessly, even to the detriment of his own health, to ensure his sons' well-being. The boys witness their father's relentless efforts through his letters. One letter reads, "Dear Boys...Sorry I haven't kept up my letter writing. The truth is, I was in the hospital a few days. Nothing serious. The doctor said it was just exhaustion."
For Louie, survival is about engaging in profitable yet illegal activities that carry significant risk. Constantly on the run due to trouble with the mob, Louie is a solitary figure who doesn't seek approval from others, unlike Bella and some other characters. Grandma Kurnitz acknowledges Louie's resilience but disapproves of his methods, stating, "You were always the strongest one. The survivor ... Live—at any cost I taught you, yes. But not when someone else has to pay the price." Bella copes by often remaining in a state of daydreaming. As Jay and Arty observe, Bella seems to drift through life aimlessly. For instance, when Bella first arrives at the apartment, she walks past it until Jay calls out to her. "I walked right by the house, didn't I? Sometimes I daydream so much, I think I should carry an alarm clock." As the play unfolds, it's revealed that Bella's daze isn't solely due to her mental challenges. Living in a state of daydreaming helps her endure life with her mother. However, by the play's conclusion, she chooses to survive by confronting her challenges rather than retreating into a daze. Her newfound strength and independence are evident in her insightful remarks to her mother.
The Importance of Family
Despite the dysfunction within the Kurnitz family, the play emphasizes that everyone needs familial love to thrive. Louie, one of the play's toughest and most independent characters, still listens to his mother. During the intense dinner scene where Bella reveals her relationship, Louie refuses to sit because he's eager to leave before the mob catches up with him. He asserts, "Louie sit! Louie stand! Louie eat! ... You don't scare me anymore, Ma. Maybe everyone else here, but not me. You understand?’’ Yet, despite his defiant words, Louie sits down moments later when his mother requests it. His love for his mother endures, even if it was tough love he received. Earlier, upon Louie's arrival, he highlights the significance of family to Jay and Arty: ‘‘There's nothing like family, boys. The one place in the world you're safe, is with your family.... Right?’’
Eddie concurs. When he must leave his sons with Grandma Kurnitz, he sees it as his only option. However, he expresses comfort in this decision through a letter, writing, "Dear Boys.... The one thing that keeps me going is knowing you're with my family. Thank God you're in good hands. Love, Pop.’’ Even the sternest character, Grandma Kurnitz, cannot endure without her family. She pretends...
(This entire section contains 267 words.)
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to need no one, but Bella is aware of the truth. Initially, Grandma Kurnitz refuses to let Arty and Jay stay, but Bella intervenes, threatening to leave if her mother doesn't allow them to stay. Bella tells her mother, "And if I go, you'll be all alone.... And you're afraid to be alone, Momma.... Nobody else knows that but me.’’
Acceptance
Despite each character's struggle to cope, they all reach a point where they must accept something they wish to avoid. For Louie, this involves acknowledging that his lifestyle is unhealthy and choosing a conventional path, like joining the military. Arty and Jay discuss their uncle's fate, pondering how Louie finally evaded the mob: "You think he's safer fighting in the South Pacific?’’ Jay asks Arty. Bella, on the other hand, must accept that the movie usher is not interested in marriage and children. Bella explains, "He wants to live with his parents because he knows that they love him. . . . And that's enough for him.’’
Throughout Bella's journey of self-discovery, she taps into her mature side and understands that she can no longer live in a state of confusion. Bella admits, "It's too late to go back for me.... Maybe I'm still a child but now there's just enough woman in me to make me miserable." She tells her mother, "We have to learn how to deal with that somehow, you and me." This is the tough reality that Grandma Kurnitz must face: Bella has matured and now seeks new experiences. At the conclusion of the play, Bella casually mentions her desire to invite a new man over for dinner. The play concludes with Grandma Kurnitz's subtle gesture of reluctant acceptance: "GRANDMA watches BELLA, then nods her head as if to say, 'So it's come to this ....'"
Dysfunctional Family Dynamics
The central focus of the play is Neil Simon’s exploration of dysfunctional family dynamics. No one is inherently evil, and everyone is a victim. Each character, except for the two boys, has been disabled by childhood traumas. Simon insists that the play is not autobiographical. Although the two boys resemble Simon’s depiction of himself and his brother in his semiautobiographical trilogy, Brighton Beach Memoirs (pr. 1982, pb. 1984), Biloxi Blues (pr. 1984, pb. 1986), and Broadway Bound (pr. 1986, pb. 1987), neither of Simon’s grandmothers resembled Grandma Kurnitz. Nevertheless, Simon’s own family was dysfunctional. His parents quarreled constantly. Relations between Simon and his mother were frequently tense. Several times his father abandoned the family for long stretches, forcing his mother to move in with relatives and work as a salesclerk at department stores. The scenes between Grandma and Bella are fictional, yet the intense emotional temperature of their exchanges, and Simon’s understanding of Bella’s desperate longing for warmth and affection, clearly reflect Simon’s own childhood needs and experience.
American Jewish Themes
Lost in Yonkers continues Simon’s use of American Jewish themes begun in his Brighton Beach trilogy. His earlier successful comedies used characters whose attitudes and cadences were derived from New York Jewish humor, but no one was identified as Jewish. In this play everyone is explicitly Jewish. Simon uses comedy to soften his exploration of the darker aspects of immigrant Jewish experiences in America.
Holocaust and German References
Specific reference to the Holocaust during the play would be anachronistic. In 1942 the Kurnitzes surely knew of the Nazi persecution of Jews, but they could not yet have been fully aware of the horrors occurring in Europe. Contemporary audiences do know of them, and that knowledge intensifies the effect of the play’s German references. When Jay speculates about the possibility of recovering their father’s inheritance from an uncle in Poland, Arty responds, “You think the Germans would let some Jew in Poland send nine thousand dollars to some Jew in Alabama?” The audience laughs, but their awareness of the Holocaust adds a darker edge to the humor. When Arty complains about his treatment by Grandma, she informs him that if he were a boy growing up in Germany he would already be dead. Grandma is presented as a victim of German oppression, but she is also a victimizer. Her German accent, and her harsh treatment of her family, make her Nazi-like.